Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor

Keff's Butt Goes to War

As we rejoin our heroes we find Creed gaining proficiency in piloting and navigation tools from the ship’s crew. Vint is looking for a ship and a job to make some money on while Aliella is looking for a place to store her sanguinium dust (she decides to hold onto it as it has been valued at around 5-10K and it is decided that there will need to be a great amount of care taken in order to sell it safely.)
Creed decides to ask around for info on the pirate island where Clandoor is likely to be and so heads to the cartographer shop.
Poppy is in the dock area asking around about the pirate hold in the bar. A 17 PERSUASION roll gets the attention of a group at a table at the end of the establishment, which is your typical dark, dingy, crowded, smelly, lower class tavern catering to sailors and travelers. Upon seeing the tension in the room, Poppy starts asking about a mountain that vomits fire. Vint fails multiple CON rolls while drinking and is passed out drunk on the floor, so Poppy is sitting atop him.
Meanwhile- Creed finds the cartographer’s shop but it is closed, so he instead goes to the library to find an archive of witness acounts of prisoners rescued from the clutches of the large pirate hold. This helps to establish a search grid in the ocean from triangulating multiple witness accounts. Aliella, after not finding a good enough place to offload the dust decides to leave it and go back to the ship.
Poppy decides to drag Vint out of the bar in his drunken stupor with the help of her large dog. She sobers him up with a water bucket and then goes to make sure that the table of 4 rough patrons whose attention she caught are still in there. They both proceed back into the bar and Vint orders two jiggers of rum for 5 silver and brings them over to the group’s table. Trying a different strategy, he asks the dwarf and elf pirates about the pirate hold directly and offers a business opportunity. Aliella joins Vint and Poppy as the negotiations take place. Talks about the myths of epic treasure and the use of CHARMPERSON by Vint help to convince the dwarf, who in turn convinces the elf. Eventually it is agreed that all 4 will meet up with the party at the docks.

Creed arrives at the cartographer’s shop as it opens, which is covered in shelves of books, lanterns and piles of scrolls. An investigation roll helps to find a map showing the planet as it once was with the date of the Gods War on it and decides to buy it. A 2 ft. tall, muscular, well-dressed halfling without shoes comes from around the counter searches for a map upon being asked about the search grid area and the possible pirate strong-hold on a possibly moving island. A map of the island chains off the coast of Mal Cordasi and the ancient map found are both bought. Creed comes back to the ship at the same time that the 4 pirates from the bar are approaching- the dwarf and elf along with a human and orc, all heavily armed and armored. A strategy is formed to split the party and have half the party on the Spectre’s Edge and have Creed and Aliella in the warship following close behind. Before getting under way, Creed uses SCRYING to help discern where Clandoor could be. All that can be found from her point of view is that he is being kept in a dark cell close to the shore and is hurt with bandages underneath his clothes.
After conferring with the newly recruited pirate mercenaries and the warships seasoned captain, it is found that the stronghold is not, in face, an island at all, but a fleet of enormous ships linked together that travel around the island chain. WIh the information in hand, the party takes off in both ships. A few hours into the journey, the Spectre’s Edge encounters something shimmering in the air heading toward them. From a distance, the orc can identify them as air elementals. INITIATIVE
It takes two turns for Creed and Aliella to catch up with the Spectre’s Edge but the air elementals are soon defeated despite some heavy hits received. After the battle is finished, the pirate mercenaries turn on the party, thinking they have been sufficiently weakened. INITIATIVE
Creed casts BANISHMENT on the orc right out of the gate and has Cluckers attack the human. Poppy goes balistic with her three hammers and kills the dwarf and elf with the help of Vint and Aliella. After, all turn on the human and soundly defeat him. After the encounter, the party divides the spoils (500 Gold, 20 platinum = 700 gold total. Everyone receives 175 gold from the mercenaries’ corpses. LEVEL 8 REACHED

"Choices"

Catch-up from missing last two sessions:

During the battle in the woods, Iggy is severely beaten andPoppy’s dog mount is vaporized by the arch-mages firebolt cantrip (crit) while escaping. In the aftermath of the battle in the woods, the party met up back at the factory, where Vint stole some extremely valuable Sanguinium dust. Poppy was badly singing a song in the tall grass which helped the party find each other and re-unite. Upon arriving back at the city, they are pulled aside by a woman on on the behest of the Princess. Aliella is handed a note from the King saying something along the lines of “sorry, but we have no choice.” The party has been exiled from Cormania due to Iggy’s over-the-top actions of blowing up the entire building that the resistance leader was in-also killing around 5 other ‘civilians’ who were party in there with him. As a result, the royal family needed to distance itself from the party due to the public outrage that had grown due to the incident. Luckily, considering Princess Eigar’s feelings for Creed, she is allowed to help the party escape the city after the royal family puts out an arrest warrant for them.

To get to their airship, the woman that met up with the party leads them to a system of underground tunnels. On their way through, all are forced to dig their way past certain parts, eventually arriving closer to the harbor and taking some lesser known paths along the rooftops. Once there, the party (minus Creed and Tom) sent the airship that they arrived with on an auto-piloted course back in the general direction of Mal Cordasi as a decoy in case there were any who followed. Instead of taking that ship, they highjacked another and made their escape. The resistance forces who are looking for them fall for the trick and catch up to the decoy, only to find it abandoned and return it to Cormania.

Creed and Tom-
To escape from the fight, Creed took off into a random direction in the woods and was unsuccessful in finding the rest of the party. An hour after the battle is finished, Tom pops back into existence and checks the wooden building that was in the clearing. Upon finding it locked, he punches the lock off and checks the crates inside the building, which seem to be full of gems the size of cantaloupes. Uninterested, he decides to turn around and march into the woods, eventually ending up on top of a hill. Both Creed and Tom see each other from elevated points and meet up somewhere in the middle to head back to the city, where they assume the rest of the party would have regrouped.

Poppy-
Poppy wants to find a new dog mount/pet and goes around to all of the best exotic pet shops where she eventually learns of an old adventurer who may be able to supply her “unique” needs. She learns that his name is “Morn Tallstack”-from the Northern tribes of the barbarians and, incidentally, father of the huge barbarian from Skaleheim that helped the party beat some Quaggoths outside of a tavern while holding two kegs. While talking with him and having his overly-slow butler retrieve some books on Sanguinium, he reveals that he knows of the red mage leader and names him – “Adrik Lutgehr.”

Tom and Creed-
Upon reaching the airships in the city at the harbor, Tom and Creed find a group of people ransacking the ship, looking for clues as to where the party went. Creed uses Minor Illusion to make it look like the ship has caught fire and gets most of them off while undoing the moorings. As the ship is pulling away, an intimidate check causes 4/5 people to fall in line and not resist being taken prisoner. The one person who decided to fight back was pushed over the side by Tom to land (hopefully safely) in the water down below. The prisoners led themselves down below deck to the brig, where the pilot of the ship and the other prisoner that was originally captured (and then forgotten about) was still being held for the past two days. Irate at his treatment, it took 50 Gold to convince him to captain the ship back to Mal Cordasi. With the others, a full crew was present and recruited, their salaries to be negotiated for the future once arriving back at the city. While on the ride back, Creed inspected the arch-mage’s posessions from the tent. An arcana check revelated that the letter stolen was about opening a door to another dimension and other unknown references. Many of the symbols are familiar from the scrapes of notes in Keff’s bag and the symbols carved over the other, older symbols on the obelisk at the Wight city. There is a distinctive feeling of forboding from the letter/arcanic runes.
Important Note*-5 large soul crystals are referenced

Iggy-
While Iggy is waiting for everyone to finish their business while he is on the ship, he creates some mechanical spiders that are able to repair metal/mechanical devices and objects.

Poppy-
Poppy bunks at the adventurer’s house for the night, gets her books and proceeds to give an update to the Patron, where she is told that Clandoor, and the ship that was meant to be a decoy, was taken by a band of pirates. They are rumored to be based on a small island to the North-West of Mal Cordasi. The island is known to not have a fixed position, making it notoriously hard to find. Due to the situation at Cormania and warrants issued for the party, the Patron has decided that it may be necessary to cut ties with them unless their reputation can be restored.

DOWNTIMEACTIVITIES-
Creed-
Creed gets some flying training from the captain-gaining proficiency in Piloting and the use of navigation tools. Hires the captain for 2G per day (skilled artisan) and 2 silver per day per person (untrained crew) making it 3g/day cost or 21g/week for the Spectre’s Edge crew.

Iggy-
Iggy meets back up with Poppy, handing over control of the ship, and sets up the first office/warehouse/training school of the Inventor’s Guild in Mal Cordasi. 2000 Gold to set up with 1000 of it coming from the patron as an investment. More economy wiki pages to be added to track the costs/profits. Hires 1 skilled artisan and 2 un-trained workers to start. A blacksmith has been hired as a source for supplies (metals, parts.) It is discovered that the smallest amount of Sanguinium raises the tensile strength and melting point of any alloy.

Episode 26: Insurgency

The party has just finished a serious scrap inside of an inn located in the red district and taken a prisoner. As quickly as the interrogation starts, it abruptly stops as the captured character, Vint (new player, Eric) promptly tells them all that Liefgar is in the gray district. Upon saying that he can lead the party straight to their target, Vint becomes a new party member.

With the new member in tow, everyone makes their way to the hideout in the gray district and begins scouting around it. Iggy and Aliella jump to the roof while Creed, Tom and Vint wait outside the back door. As Aliella is stealthily scouting out the situation, Iggy decides to forego clearing the building room by room and instead decides to just blow the whole thing up with his extremely-high-explosive time-bombs, leveling the building and a good portion of the block it was on. With that serious of encounters out of the way and all potential loot and enemies buried together, the team decides to call it a job well done and get some much needed rest back at the castle.

Once informed that the job is done (after a long rest,) the representative of the royal family informs the group that another matter needs attending to. A couple of days ago, a mining facility a day away from the castle was reported attacked by an army of inanimate automatons similar to those used at the facility. Fearing a fate similar to that of Skaleheim, Creed informs them to shore up the city defenses just in case before setting out to investigate. Once at the mining site, a few things become apparent:
1. What is being mined at the facility is an extremely rare and strong building material that is highly sought after
2. The facility was indeed attacked by automatons-the descriptions of which match the previously encountered steel-jacks.
3. The inside of the facility is very hot and inflicts fire damage due to the smelting going on.
Eventually, tracks are found and followed into a forest, where the group comes upon a clearing filled with a wooden building in the back, an opulent tent in the middle and otherwise surrounded by many orcs.
Creed casts invisibility on himself to investigate further with Aliella, who is naturally stealthy being both an elf and a monk who is able to use Pass Without A Trace. BACKFIRE!
After both creep around the the back of the tent to investigate what is inside, they pull up the tent flap and move inside-only to come face to face with a red-robed Arch-Mage who is in the middle of writing something on a desk covered with papers. As Creed is still invisible, he grabs all the papers he can off the desk as initiative is rolled and the entire camp is alerted.
Fight!-
The arch-mage casts mirror image to create 3 of himself while the orcs rush towards Iggy, Tom and Vint. Iggy throws a flash bomb to stun/blind the entire group (which is completed by steel-jacks and an orc war-chief.) Creed dashes out of the tent with the loot towards the group and Aliella casts darkness and runs away as well. As everyone regroups at the tree-line, Iggy kills 10 orcs, so just the war-chief and mirror images of the arch-mage are left in front (the steel-jacks have not yet made it over.) Despite some valiant fighting, the arch-mage is able to stride out and blink Tom the war-forged away, just like Keff had been blinked away before (or so it seems.) After the war-chief is downed, the arch-mage gives the command to raise the steel-jacks as he walks back into the tent.
Exhausted, scared and now down one more party member, the adventurers are surrounded by their mechanized foes.

"Scum and Villainy"

Quick catch up:

There was a one-off side adventure taking place in a dream sequence for Creed, Tom and Iggy. A magical fire was engulfing a castle containing vials of memories and magical libraries etc. A talking bear helped fend off some undead, some brain devourers were defeated (and the corpse of one collected.) In the basement, a Fire Elemental that controlled the furnace broke loose and was defeated. Creed was awarded with a magical staff and the original person who asked for help gave an evil wink and grin as the players were whisked away after accomplishing their task.

On the ship, after the unpleasantness, the group found a warforged monk in storage who Gordon is now playing as.

After traveling for a bit, the ship (now called “The Spectre’s Edge”) comes upon a large land mass dominated by a huge port city. As they approach, another airship escorted by two smaller ones meet up with them and pull alongside. The leader asks to speak with the princess privately and after doing so helps tow in The Spectre’s Edge to the airship docking tower at the edge of the city. [Map is provided at table]

Once at the tower, the group is met by a city guard contingent that begins escorting the princess and the players to the castle on edge of the city. On the way, the party is assaulted by two groups of thugs without warning. A fireball and an assault by Iggy’s minigun takes out a majority of the aggressors and send the rest packing. Eventually all arrive at the castle, where they are thanked for their services. As it turns out, the ruling family has a lead on a leader of the rebellion-Leofgar Greatcloak. They assign an up-and-coming adventurer to aid the party, introducing Ciela’s character – Aliella.

Aliella leads everyone to a lively tavern called “The Wandering Staff” where casino-like games are being played while others drink merrily. Creed plays a game of chance and wins a bit of coin to do some recon while Iggy gets a flagon of mead and Aliella watches from the rafters. Eventually, Iggy spots a door in the back that people occasionally filter in and out of. After some discussion, it is decided that the party will simply push their way in and use Iggy’s Immovable Rod to bar the door from the inside. As soon as someone exits, Iggy grabs them and pushes inside with Aliella and Creed.

Initiative is rolled and the party faces off against 3 thugs, the leader of the group in his nicest finery, the second-in-command and the muscle of the group. It is a brutal fight with both Creed and Iggy going down at some point, but luckily Cluckers is there to help Aliella clean up. At the end, the party is left bloody and badly in need of a rest, yet the leader is captured and the others are put down.

(Note: Clandoor, Tom and Poppy are back in Mal Cordasi helping the gnomes relocate back to Skaleheim after its devestation during this time.)

"Sky Pirates Nab An Adventurer"

(Following a brief holiday hiatus)

In this session of “Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor:”

The adventurers have gained possession of an airship and are now transporting a princess from a foreign land back to her home. Creed is inspecting the engines to figure out how they work via magic and Iggy is at the helm.

Poppy now has dual hammers, which can be slammed together to deal lightning damage due to their opposing magnetic properties. Iggy has some new gadgets, including flash-bang bombs.

Creed and Iggy worked together to figure out that the energy crystals can be hooked directly to the engines without needing a conduit and did so. After returning to the top deck, another airship was spotted angling in towards them. After some tense waiting, it came within range to attack and immediately did. Bandits and a wizard started attacking with crossbows and spells, but not before setting up a cannon on the side of the ship. There was some intense fire exchanged between the wizards on both ships and then Iggy launched his harpoon across to the other ship and walked across the tightrope wire to do some melee damage. Poppy did the same with her mastiff (named Sherwood) and was in the thick of it when Iggy activated a flash-bang, blinding and deafening enemies and allies alike.
Amid all the confusion, with fireballs and crossbow bolts being thrown back and forth, the wizard makes Keff disappear using some kind of persistent spell and after a turn, disappears himself. An initial counter-spell was able to make them appear again, but after the second time, both are now gone.
[Keff’s character sheet has been handed in. For all the group in-game knows, Keff is dead and the wizard simply teleported away before the ship is scuttled.]
After the disappearing act and with his allies dropping like flies, one of the bandits points the cannon to the deck of the ship and fires it-adding to the already considerable damage done by multiple fire spells. Seeing that the ship is losing power, Iggy and Poppy make their way back onto the chain from the harpoon as it detaches from the enemy ship. Both pull themselves up and over onto the airship as Creed slowly recovers from the after-effects of the flash-bang.
Poppy peers over the side at the descending ship and sees a piece of cloth wafting down below. After a lucky throw of 25, she is able to throw a grappling hook down to it and the line goes slack. With the help of Iggy, she is able to pull up the captain of the enemy ship who was previously falling with a parachute. A charm spell from Creed kept him docile as they pulled him up and put him below deck. Now the group is left to interrogate the captain as well as try and figure out what happened to Keff or cope with his loss forever.

A wild airship appears!

In this session of “Godstorm: The fall of Darnthor”….

The adventurers are at the tavern in the village of kenutact, where they receive a summons from the Patron back in Mal Cordasi. Leaving Clandoor (with Anders) with one side of the teleport, the rest of the party steps through and meets up with him. Upon arrival, the Patron is accompanied by a woman in his office. He introduces her as a princess of a royal family from a far-off kingdom that is a major trade partner of Mal Cordasi. Her family and the entire kingdom is in danger thanks to a group of rebels who seek to overthrow them. The group is informed that the group may even have some people within the city and that the princess must be protected until an airship sent from her kingdom can arrive. Then, she must be escorted to it and eventually on it back home safely. Creed Melech decides to stay with her while the others tie up some loose ends.

While in the city, the group also takes some time to talk to Himo and the cleric gnome to let them know about the state of their city. The gnomes express the wish to return home and re-secure it. Advising caution, the party members are able to convince them to first send some scouts down the shaft of the volcano to assess the situation first.

In order to keep one side of the teleportation gate on the island, the group decides to return and give it to the Kittiwakka. To convince them and gain their favor, Keff buys some furs to give them. Once there, Poppy brings the furs along with Anders towards the woods while the others stay behind for some downtime activities, such as gaining proficiency in weapons and working on contraptions. On the way there, Poppy spots an airship hovering above the volcano mouth next to a platform used for trading with those below. She runs back and tells the others, who all rush up the mountain to it. Once there, Keff casts an invisibility spell on a horse carrying two of the party and a large dog carrying the rest of the smaller members. Invisible, everyone sneaks on successfully and proceeds to take over the ship.

After some battles involving arrows shooting out from nowhere and enemies getting knocked out or thrown overboard, the ship is claimed. Keff examines the magical properties of the ship with detect magic while Iggy inspects the machinery. Poppy and (insert dwarf cleric’s name) untie the morrings that kept the ship from floating off and the ships ends up floating off without any real control. After drifting for a while, some slight control is gained by fiddling with the steering mechanism but the ship still cannot travel anywhere reliably.

Eventually, somebody in red robes teleports aboard the ship. Some cautious questions reveals that he is the wizard the group has been chasing. He tells everyone to stop what they are doing or else (10 d6 dice are placed on the table.) He reveals that he knows every member of the group and what they seek. Offering Poppy a chance to find her family, Poppy instantly takes it and is handed a piece of paper with an address (but no further information, such as in what kingdom or continent the address is located.) Nobody else is willing to give up and Iggy’s attempt at blowing up the deck does nothing, as the wizard takes no damage. Physical attacks prove fruitless as he is immaterial. Eventually, the party decides to scuttle the ship and begins preparations to do so.

Meanwhile, Creed is flirting with the princess, trying to gain extra information on what she knows and increase his ‘favor’ with her with various pickup lines. Unfortunately, he pulls his chicken out too early in an attempt to impress her and loses most of what he was able to gain. All the while, the group on the island is updating him after being given one half of the scrolls of messaging. The last message he received was about the party overtaking the airship and trying to figure out how to control it.

The Lobotta and Kittiwakka of Kennutact

In this session of “Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor”:

Ignatious, the dwarf cleric is not present for this session.

We join the adventurers travelling up the shaft of the volcano after narrowly escaping the destruction caused to Skaleheim caused by a machine drilling into the volcano wall and flooding a quarter of the city.

On the long ride to the top, the party takes a long rest and uses the time to do some checks. First, an arcana check is made on Keff’s wooden mask (which feels like stone to the touch) that was recovered from the troglodytes. Creed received a vision of short, shadowy humanoid creatures with long, pointy teeth and wearing the same kinds of masks chasing him-a vision through the eyes of another from the time of the Gods War. The perception of them was fuzzy, as if they were not of this plane or not entirely solid. There were thousands of them, demonic with wings and horns, about 3 or 4 different kinds of varying heights. A detect magic ritual done by Keff revealed that the mask has the properties of abjuration magic. A history check of 22 and religion check of 16 revealed no information on it. After inspecting the mask, Creed makes another effort to reach out and sense the artifact’s presence. An INT roll of 23 revealed its presence was ethereal-far away but close by at the same time. A definite location could not be pinned down.
Since the trip to the top was so slow, Iggy and Creed decide to use the collapsible portal to gate back to Mal Cordasi to do some research. Iggy uses the time to work on a new invention and create some more ‘specialty’ bullets for Clandoor. Creed does some research on UNITY. A History roll of 25 reveals the following information:

UNITY is a sort of multi-purpose, multi-specialty mega-corp type of guild or underground black organization

Mostly a group of White-Guards (magic-user killers)

Organization started shortly after the Gods War

The word TREVAN keeps appearing, although it is unknown whether this is the name of a person, place or thing.
Additional time was used to research the soul gems and the technology/nature of them and how they are able to store energy. The following information was gained:

Soul gems are mere receptacles. Life energy can be extracted and stored in them.

The gems are not naturally grown, but manufactured through an unknown process

They are quartz-based but magically grown

Before going back through the gate, Creed advises Patron Tjorven Latrell to shore up the city’s defenses considering the search for the item led the enemy army straight to the Wight City and Skaleheim. However, the Patron does not seem to think there is any real threat as no aggressive actions have been made towards the city as of yet.

Both Iggy and Creed return through the gate as the lift reaches the top of the dormant volcano. What the party sees is that they are on top of a mountain overlooking a fishing town of about 40 buildings on an island in the middle of an ocean. After making their way down the mountain, the group arrives in the town of Kennutact (attach wiki entry,) filled with pale people wearing drab clothes made of cloth and leather with no ornamentation except for different-colored sashes (which are apparently very in vogue right now.) From Poppy, both the name of the town and some unique information about it is gained. During her travels, she learned of stories that people hear strange voices and see spirits in the fog at night.

At the Inn/tavern called the “Shrouded Mistress,” the bartender reveals to Clandoor, Poppy and Creed that he saw about 50-60 people travel down the shaft via the lift at one point, including humans dressed in red robes and other, rougher-looking types. At another point, some emerged with crates and cages, but he did not know what they contained. Other info and rumors gained from asking around include:

The lady who lives at the mayor’s manor keeps her children locked up for a reason none can discern

The natives, called the “kittiwakka,” make offerings to Lobatta and do no associate with the fishermen. There are tales of them being cannibals and that they make different kinds of offerings to the Lobatta to curry its favor while practicing evil magic.

A Captain Jane Kell is willing to pay anyone who can help her take revenge on the Lobatta for killing so many.

The harbormaster, Kelith, after being asked by Keff and Iggy about the large ship currently docked in the harbor, reveals that it is on its way to Alagandree in the West, in the opposite direction of Mal Cordasi. After the encounter with Kelith, Keff and Iggy spot a man departing from the docks with his wife and child weeping as they try to keep him from going. From them it is learned that he heard the call of the Lobatta and had an urge he could not fight to confront it, like so many before him. They are crying because none who go ever return. Iggy says sorry about his whole never coming back thing.

After meeting back up and compiling information, Creed takes a leisurely stroll around the city. Clandoor and Poppy turn in for the night while Iggy stays up working on a way to turn the soul-gems into soul-capturing devices with his mechanical knowledge and Keff makes an appointment for the next day at the mayor’s manor. Once it gets dark, Creed makes his way back only to encounter a ghost of a sea captain floating outside of the inn. Making his way up to it, he fails a constitution check and suffers from a level of debilitating insanity, falling to the ground crying and screaming. Hearing this, Iggy bounds out the window and uses a very basic ghost-buster type of contraption to chase away the ghost under the light of a full moon.

When the morning rolls around, Poppy and Creed decide to seek out the Kittywakka about the Lobatta while Keff attempts to speak to the family at the mayor’s manor. Poppy and Creed are making their way through the woods when they spot two rabbit-fur covered natives following them and call out to be taken to their leader. After being escorted to the cave in which they live, they are led down to the offering altar in a grotto, where they meet Apika Spirit-seer, who helps them make an offering of a ration pack to Lobatta next to some rotting fruit.

A Half-ling new-comer and the end of Skaleheim

In this session of “Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor:”

The party has just barely survived an encounter with a group of red-cloaked assassins, leaving one alive for interrogation. After binding their captive, the glow of an incoming teleportation circle appears from the corner of the train station, signalling reinforcements. Instead of facing another force of armored opponents, everyone decides to run.
On the way to an empty house a few blocks away through an alleyway, a crossbow bolt flies overhead, narrowly missing the group. After a tense stand-off, a tiny halfling comes out of cover and introduces herself as “Poppy,” explaining that her family was part of a traveling performance troupe that ended up in Skaleheim and has since been either killed or taken prisoner. Hearing some commotion from the street, the party recruits Poppy and takes her with them, ending up at an abandoned building outside of the garrison near the Western city gate and the elevator that goes to to the surface. As everyone enters, there is a slight ground quake that quickly passes and a few rocks fall from above. It is not the first time this has happened.
Iggy sets up the teleportation door and everyone walks through. Back in Mal Cordasi, everyone takes a long rest and runs some brief errands before regrouping to head back and try to liberate the city. Iggy buys a breastplate from the armory and trades in his chain-mail, slightly raising his AC. Alandrei practices with his sword to become proficient in its use and Poppy and Clandoor get some food and drink at the inn. Creed Melech and Keff of Trynn’s Hold take the time to interrogate their red-cloak prisoner with the use of a Charm Person spell. He reveals that he is among many groups of people recruited as mercenaries to cause general mayhem throughout the city of Skaleheim, hired by a man named Trynsold (sp?) He is personally part of a criminal organization known as UNITY. Among the recruited are Deuragar dwarves, drow and quiggoths and many different factions of humans eager to earn some coin. Nobody knows what the reason is for this invasion-all are just following orders for pay. Satisfied with the information, Creed and Keff strip the prisoner of his robes and put him in the prison for later use as a subject for experimentation. Everyone meets up again and walks through the portal again, appearing in the building from before.
Keff and Creed decided to use disguises to find some of the leaders of the assault on the city and try to gain some information. The rest of the party made their way back towards Himo’s workshop on the opposite side of the city to retrieve the contingent of soldiers that originally came through with them (and who were subsequently forgotten.) Creed and Keff (team B) went back to the train station, only to find it empty. On their way across the city, Team A encountered a drunken Barbarian outside of a tavern. Alandrei had another couple ales with him and convinced him to come along with the group in order to find some ‘things to punch.’ Lagging behind with the barbarian in tow (who was holding a ‘to-go’ keg), the Alandrei eventually caught up with the rest of the group who had encountered 7 quiggoth and were hiding around a corner in an alley. The drunken singing of the barbarian alerted them and a battle ensued.
Team B decided to join back up with Team A, having not found anything of importance, and started making their way across the city, only to feel another ground quake, which felt more severe than the last. Across the city, Creed could vaguely make out the image of something mechanical clinging to the rock wall. Eventually, Team B met up with Team A and joined in the fray. Though some of the quiggoth attempted to escape, they were quickly put down (with the help of Cluckers.) Poppy successfully killed one of the Quiggoth and still had one of their heads wrapped up in her whip, deciding to carry it with her. Upon inspection of Himo’s workshop, no sign of the soldiers was found except for some tell-tale signs of a scuffle.
After the battle, Creed was able to point out the mechanical device to Iggy, who identified it as a drilling machine as it bored into the rock wall. The tunnel it created quickly started filling with light. Everyone decided it was best to run as it got brighter.
Without sacrificing the teleportation gate, the only means of escape was the elevator, so the party made its way across the city towards it. On the way, a party of a dozen deuragar appeared. Everyone but Poppy made successful stealth checks. Creed used an invisibility spell on her to help her disappear. The only way to get around them without taking too long was to go through, so Iggy stealthily dropped a bomb down to Poppy, who stuffed it inside the quiggoth head and threw it at the group of deuragar. Surprised by a floating quiggoth head suddenly disappearing out of thin air, they all turned to look at it as it exploded. Many were injured and sent prone and the rest were slowed down as the party ran. After three rounds of throwing debris in the streets, Ray of Frosting the road to create slick terrain and throwing bombs, the group made it to the elevator. Clandoor and Creed were surrounded, but Iggy jumped in and saved Creed with his jump boots and Clandoor was able to slip through the enemies with a dex check thanks to a well-timed distraction.
Iggy was able to get the elevator to work thanks to help from Poppy, who had ridden it before on previous visits to Skaleheim. Everyone got on board and made their way upwards as the flow of lava from the tunnel began filling the city.

Rumble with the Red-Cloaks

In this session of “Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor”:

Keff returns from his errand at the prison to the south of Malakordasi, only to find that the rest of the group is back in Skaleheim, attempting to free it from the hands of an enemy army. He makes his way through the active teleportation gate and begins his investigation, finding the city to be eerily quiet. The first people he comes across seems to be looking for something. One of the members leaves and Keff decides to ask him what is going on. Unfortunately, the person he asked turns out to be an arch-mage and immediately attacks, causing a fair bit of damage. Keff runs at full speed away from him down multiple alley-ways and comes out across the street from the old temple where the rest of the party is exiting with some gnomes in tow. He wisely yells “RUN!!!” and doesn’t even break stride.

The party is reeling from the fight with the arch-mage. In the aftermath of the battle, the group makes its way out of the altar-room and hears the muffled sounds of prisoners in the living quarters. 10 are released and the group makes its way back to the workshop, only to see Keff bolting out of an alley nearby yelling “RUN!!!”

Everyone runs back to the workshop as quickly as they can. Creed uses a “ray of frost” spell to slow the mage down, but 2 of the 10 gnomes die while fleeing. Eventually, the group loses the pursuer and make it successfully back to the workshop and through the gate.

Everybody gets a long rest and stocks up on health potions. The patron is notified about what is going on and grants the group the company of 20 soldiers from the town guard to help take back the city. A guard is left at the entrance gate in the lab with a scroll of messaging in case anybody makes their way through and to notify him of more incoming rescued prisoners. With all health and spell slots restored, the group makes its way back through the gate with the aim of rescuing as many other gnomes and killing as much of the invading force as possible .

First stop was the marketplace, as that was the most likely place where a large amount of people would usually be found, making it a likely place to find bound prisoners. Everyone set up in a large grid pattern to search the entire market and about 20 gnomes in total were found, including Himo the workshop owner and the cleric from before. All were escorted back to the workshop and through the gate.

Second stop was the train station, as the group thought it was a good idea to cut off points of entry into the city. A trap on the front door just barely nicked Iggy and Keff, but after it went off, the group entered the station, only to find it empty. A message was attached to the mining carts used as the transport along the inlaid tracks so the dwarves would know the city was under siege and was sent off. While preparing to exit, a group of two red-cloaked warriors that Keff had met before at the inn as well as a few heavily-armored fighters walked by the station. A minor illusion spell made it seem that the trap never went off and Iggy was able to get the jump on the group with his harpoon gun.

An extremely tough battle ensued in which multiple group members were downed, only rescued by a potion that Clandoor had and some healing from the cleric. One red-cloak was left alive for interrogation. It is in the aftermath of this battle that the group realized it can no longer simply barrel its way through enemies with brute force, but will need to strategize and prioritize targets better as each of the red-cloaked warriors in the group turned out to be as much of a challenge as the arch-mage.

Next time on “Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor”, the party plans on interrogating the red-cloak to find their army’s points of entry and any other information on why they are there. The elevator remains a priority to secure and many gnomes remain to be rescued. 2 arch-mages also remain (that the group knows of.)

First Big Bad Fight

In this session of “Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor”:

Keff decided to visit a prison to the south of Malakordasi for reasons unknown and has split from the rest of the group for this session.

The party returns to Scaleheim via Iggy’s teleportation door bought from Himo at the workshop in the city, which exits at the workshop itself. Upon inspection, the workshop is empty and the city is eerily quiet and empty. iggy took a second teleportation gate in the workshop to Himo’s personal house, only to find it empty. After looking out the windows, he saw three plumes of smoke coming from where the magistrate’s office is.
After telling the rest of the group, all made their way towards the office, only to find that it is not the magistrate’s office that was on fire, but the building across from it. In front of it, a dwarf armed with a warhammer was found holding off a group of 5 humanoids. Clandoor yelled “what’s going on here?!” only to have the closest two thugs attack. As they closed, about 5 more humanoids, looking as if they were not made of flesh, appeared in an alley. Alandrei the dwarven cleric identified the ones coming from the alley as ‘twig-blights,’ made of bundles of sticks. During the ensuing battle, the twig-blights were found to explode when exposed to fire. The thugs were not so vulnerable.

After the fight, Alandrei Godsheld introduced himself as a dwarf on a brief vacation visiting from the dwarven city connected to Scaleheim by the train. Creed used ‘Charm Person’ on a knocked out thug to find that he was under the employ by a man in red. The party hid the bodies in a nearby alley, first liberating the corpses of the red arm bands that all of the humans wore. Once inside, Creed distributed the arm-bands, only to have Iggy discover that the symbol on them identified them as belonging to the same people who stole his family’s fortune and tried to assassinate him years before. The charmed thug, Finnian (named Gerald by Iggy) is from a city named Guthar and was hired to guard the magistrates office and general thuggery while the city was sacked. Without any more useful information, the thug was knocked out. Creed investigated the rest of the building, only to find it deserted while Iggy tracked down a map of the city.

The next logical place to investigate would be the temple, as everyone is fairly certain that the wizard is searching for the item that Creed encountered before. However, knowing the city is now empty, the party proceeded to the magic shop, hoping to loot it. Upon arriving, they found it had already been ransacked, and only 2 healing potions and a potion of climbing was left. They were looted and distributed and everyone made their way to the temple. From the alley, they watched a guard patrol cross until Creed accidentally stepped on a cat’s tail, which sped away. The guards were not alerted and the group made their way inside, made easier by the fact that the doors and a good part of the wall had been blown out.

Before entering the chamber where the item was encountered, an investigation of the door revealed a trap, which Iggy promptly disarmed with his thieves tools. After slowly opening the door and peering inside, Creed saw a man at the altar in robes along with 5 thugs flanking him. Using the Magic Jar, Creed attempted to possess the man at the altar but failed. A successful attempt on one of the thugs led to Creed threatening the man while in the other’s body, only to end the spell before the man could kill the thug. The party then kicked the door in and attacked the arch-mage and the group surrounding him.

The thugs fell easily enough under the pressing might of the party. However, the arch-mage put up a fight with extremely powerful spells, including lightning bolts. With use of the immovable rod, the doors were shut tight, preventing an escape. The arch-mage attempted to escape with misty step, but some area attacks prevented it. Eventually he put up a force wall with his back to the door. Iggy launched himself over it with his rocket boots and shot the wizard with his harpoon, continually stunning him with his shocking gloves. Clandoor threw Alandrei over it and both engaged him, along with Creed slinging spells, which turned out to be ineffective. As it turns out, the arch-mage was resistant to almost everything. After pounding on him viciously, Clandoor delivered the killing blow, launching himself off of the dwarf and chopping off the mage’s head, which Creed collected and put in his magic jar.